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This story was added to the People’s War website by Anne Wareing of the Lancashire Home Guard on behalf of Muriel Minto and submitted to the site with her permission…

I volunteered for the WRENS when I was seventeen, I had to go to Winchester for my training, a long way from my home in Manchester and I was restricted from going home as it was so far away.

My parents were in business and Manchester was not the best of places to be during the war, what with the bombs and the doodlebugs. My brother was in the RAF and I had sister who got married at 21, her husband who was in the Royal Artillery and had to go back to his regiment three days after the wedding. Sadly he was taken prisoner by the Japanese and she never saw him again or indeed found out exactly what had happened to him.

But to go back to the WRENS, I was a shorthand typist in an office and was very happy. Life was good and so was the food, no ration books were needed. There were both males and females on the camp and I had boyfriend, who was one of the sailors, he was a Scot and could play the accordion. He came home and met my parents when I was 21. (I did get a pass home, when the serious part of the war was over). I remember he had a tattoo, which wasn’t really approved of at home. I think he was more serious than I was, I wasn’t ready to get engaged and besides I was enjoying life too much.

There were some Americans nearby and we always got invited to their dances, transport provided. I always found them to be perfect gentlemen; if you behaved like a lady, they treated you like one. The dances were good fun, only coca cola to drink of course, but sometimes the drinks would get spiked.

I made very many fiends during my time in the WRENS, I never went abroad as you had to be twenty one to do so, or have your parents signature. I was discharged in 1944 and went back to secretarial work in an office. But I had got used to the outdoor life, so I joined the Manchester City Police, which I thoroughly enjoyed, passing my sergeant’s exam, before I finally resigned

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